Office Wellness Programs Actually Help Your Bottom Line

by R&I Consultants

Who says that office rivalries are a bad thing? According to a recent article entitled “Up for the Challenge: Companies Get Competitive With Wellness Program Challenges” in the Atlanta Business Chronicle, companies with wellness program challenges actually save money and retain more employees in the long run. To find out why, we decided to dig a little deeper into the article.

Wellness program challenges tend to be anything that promotes exercise and healthy eating within an office setting. For instance, employees at eVestment set 90-day fitness challenges and competed against each other to see who could accomplish the best results; Whitehead & Associates Inc. held a 10,000-step challenge for its 24 workers; and Fallon Benefits Group Inc. held a holiday recipe contest where dishes could not have over 500 calories per serving. Gift certificates to Whole Foods were given to the winners.

Not only do wellness programs improve employee health through friendly competition, but they also help the company’s bottom line. According to the American Journal of Health Promotion’s 2014 “What Is the ROI of Workplace Health Promotion? The Answer Just Got Simpler By Making the Question More Complicated,” most companies investing in wellness programs actually experience a positive ROI, which the journal attributed to the lower health care costs of healthier and happier employees. In fact, the Atlanta Business Chronicle article points out that company wellness programs “result in an average 30 percent reduction in workers’ compensation and disability claims costs.”

Another American Journal of Health Promotion article, “Financial Impact of Health Care Promotion Programs: A comprehensive view review of literature,” says work sites with wellness programs also experience lower absentee rates, resulting in an average of $5.06 saved for every dollar spent on wellness programs. Wellness programs also tend to improve worker morale as a result of friendly competition and increased exercise.

So, if you institute well-planned, researched and friendly wellness program challenges at your workplace, you could very well be looking at lower health insurance costs, higher employee retention rates, lower absentee rates and happier employees, all resulting in a more profitable bottom line.